What's going on with the Doctor?
by hufflepuff-at-heart
Summary: the Doctor, Martha and a newly blonde Jack go to a ship that is very familiar to the the Doctor. Who is there? and what is going on in the cells? rated T for safety Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any characters


The Doctor and Martha stood in the console room, discussing where they should go next. Jack had gone to find an outfit to go with his newly dyed hair. The topic, although, had far since veered away from their travels and onto sillier subjects.

"No but seriously, what is _up_ with your hair?" Martha asked, her eyebrows arched, as Jack walked out from the bowels of the TARDIS.

"What you don't like it?" said Jack running his fingers through his now fluffy blonde hair, "I've always heard that blondes have more fun."

"Not necessarily," said the Doctor who was staring at the time rotor, "Jack, what the hell are you _wearing_?" he asked incredulously as he looked up from the console to him, taking in his outfit.

"I was going for the preppy look," said Jack as he fingered the red and beige jacket that covered his retro cricket outfit.

"But you had to wear my clothes?" asked the Doctor, "You don't touch my clothes!"

"Well, I took off the celery!" Jack defended, "But if you want I'll change."

Just then the TARDIS pinged, "No there's no time," the Doctor sighed, "Well come on then, let's go!" he cried, grabbing his trench coat and running to the doors.

"But, wait," asked Martha, "We decided on where we're going?"

"No Martha, we didn't decide I just picked a co-ordinate pair from the TARDIS memory-bank," the Doctor said as the trio stepped out of the ship. "It looks as if we're on some sort of space station!" exclaimed the Doctor, trotting off to look at the sign plastered onto the off-white wall. "Pardon our mess," he read aloud, "Must be under construction, but which ship is this?" the Doctor thought, rubbing his neck.

"If all of the doctors would please report to the main conference area," a soothing voice announced over an intercom, breaking the Doctor's train of thought.

"You heard the woman," the Doctor said nudging Martha, "Jack, don't wander off."

As the Doctor and Martha strode off arm in arm, Jack began to stray away, ignoring the Doctor's request. He strode through the dimly lit hallways, occasionally turning a corner. Something that Jack noticed as he walked the halls was that they were lined with doors. His curiosity getting the better of him, he peered into one of the barred windows on the front of a door that had the numbers 12-30-72 in bold black stamped on it. Jack saw that there was a person sitting in one of the corners of the padded cell, an evil smirk etched onto his face. He had welts on his skin that were discolored and misshapen. Jack observed that there was one of these humans inside every containment cell. As he made another turn he was blinded by the brightness of the newly refurbished hallway.

As his eyes adjusted to the stark white hallway, a woman walked out of one of the patient's cells. As she stood, peering at her clipboard, Jack took in her appearance. She had tired grey eyes that were protected by rimless glasses that rested on her pert nose which was clear of any welts as was the rest of her skin. Her straight brown hair brushed her shoulders, but when Jack looked there were several curls held up in the back of her head. Her bangs brushed her eyebrows that had furrowed. Her clothing, a maroon crushed velvet pant suit, was concealed by a white lab coat. Her feet were enclosed in black ankle boots. She turned and finally noticed Jack staring at her.

Her grey eyes widened in disbelief at the sight of Jack as her clipboard slipped from her grasp, sending it clattering to the floor. She ran to him, encircling her arms around his torso. Jack stood in shock for a moment, and then returned the gesture, awkwardly wrapping his arms around her upper back. They stood there for a moment until the woman jerked out of Jack's arms, glaring at him. She spoke in an unearthly accent, her voice, normally soft and soothing, sounded hard and accusing, "What have you done with the Doctor?" Following those words she kicked Jack in the shin, causing an indignant sound to spurt from his mouth and make him grab his leg, looking at the now bruising shin. Jack looked up at the woman just in time to see her elbow come slamming into his stomach causing him to involuntarily hunch over. She grabbed his neck, holding him in a headlock when she demanded once more, "What have you done with the Doctor?"

Taking his strangled grunts as an answer, she tightened her hold on his throat when Jack cried out in between labored breaths, "Wait…wait! I can take you… to the Doctor, I-I travel with him!"

The woman hesitated before relaxing her arm, causing him to collapse onto the floor, "Show me."

He clambered off of the tile and started to wander, leading the woman, "He said he was going to the main conference room," Jack said, daring a glance at the lady.

"Oh rabbits!" she cried causing Jack to jump, "I was supposed to be there an hour ago, they probably hate me," she said, now rushing to get to the room. She finally reached two big doors that had the ship's logo, two multi-colored skulls, as the doorknobs with Jack close behind her. She pushed them open and announced breathlessly, "Sorry I'm late, I ran into an unauthorized person in the halls. This is…" she trailed off gesturing at Jack.

"Captain Jack Harkness," he whispered into her ear.

"Right, Captain Jack Harkness. Anyway, show us what you need to, Dr. Garm," she said, gesturing to the furry grey dog-like man after sitting down next to Jack, who settled into the nearest two seats, next to the Doctor and Martha.

" 'Don't wander off Jack,' That's what I said Don't. Wander. Off," said the Doctor seriously, "And what do you do? Wander off!"

"Shh!" exclaimed the woman glaring at the two men, "He's starting!"

"Thank you, Dr. Traken," Garm said, shuffling his papers, "I ran into some unusual symptoms in one patient. He is prone to megalomaniac tendencies as well as Lazar's. He also babbles endlessly about his race that betrayed him or he'll be sitting silently in the corner of his cell like he is now," he said, gesturing to a monitor that had the man who Jack had seem earlier still sitting a corner looking as if he was plotting, "It's quite abnormal really."

"When did start?" asked the Doctor, putting on his glasses.

"About a week ago," replied Garm.

"That's when the black hole flared up, isn't it?" asked another person. With those eight words both the Doctor and Dr. Traken jumped up and asked frantically, "What cell is he in?"

"Cell 12-30-72," Garm a confused said.

"That's the cell I found you near," said Dr. Traken as she ran through the halls, followed closely by Jack, the Doctor and Martha.

As they turned into the hall that the room was located they were met with a thick black smoke, hanging in the air. They ran through it and found that the man had blown the door open with some rudimentary explosives. The four of them walked back to the conference area and the Doctor said assuming total authority, "We need to lock down the entire ship."

The doctors looked at him blankly, staying rooted into their seats. Dr. Traken sighed, stepped up standing next to the Doctor and stated in a slightly condescending tone, "We need to take an advanced Theta-Gamma-Omega defense."

All of the doctors sprang into action, a flurry of motion and random shouts, causing the Doctor to give a surprised look to the small woman.

"What does an advanced Theta-Gamma-Omega defense do?" asked the Doctor.

"It locks down the entire ship," Dr. Traken said with a smirk. "So who _are_ you three?"

"I'm Martha Jones, doctor…" she trailed off.

"Traken. Dr. Nyssa of Traken" the woman supplied with a smile. After she said that, she was pulled into a huge embrace by the Doctor.

"Oh it is great to see you Nyssa! You have no _idea_ how great it is to see you! " he exclaimed to a confused and out of breath Nyssa, "Are we on Terminus? Wow it's cleaned up well!" the Doctor rambled after releasing Nyssa and setting her onto the floor.

"_Who_ are you again?" asked Nyssa once more.

"That's the Doctor," said Jack with a cautious smile.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" exclaimed Nyssa, facing Jack and hitting his arm lightly. She turned back to the Doctor, "So you've changed _again_?" she said smiling at him, betraying her exasperated tone.

"Yup, on my tenth body now," the Doctor said smirking.

"So, what? The pretty-boy incarnations go in fives?" Nyssa asked.

"Well, yes and I don't hear anyone complaining," he said with a smug smirk on his face.

"I'm not," Martha and Jack said at the same time, inflating the Time Lord's ego even more.

"The Time Lords, did they survive?" asked Nyssa, concerned, "I heard about the War."

"No," the Doctor said, losing his smile, "They all died."

"Oh Doctor," the Trakenite said with unshed tears in her eyes, letting the Doctor engulf her in a hug once more.

Martha and Jack watched as the two old friends embraced, feeling a bit awkward. They were holding each other for a few moments until Nyssa whispered into the Doctor's ear, "I know what you're going through right now Doctor and I really sympathize, but you need to let me go now, I think that your friends are starting to feel a bit uncomfortable."

The Doctor complied grudgingly with a sigh and then turned to his human assistants, "Well… let's go find our little escapee then, hmm?"

"Okay then, touching moment over I guess," said Martha as she grasped the Doctor's hand, watching Jack fall in step with Nyssa behind her as they walked down the halls looking for the fugitive leper.

"So, how do you know the Doctor?" Jack asked looking at Nyssa with his eyebrows raised.

"I started traveling with the fourth version of the Doctor when saved me from my planet, which blew up, but then he regenerated into his fifth body that looked as you do now. Sorry about beating you up because of that, I was just worried that something had happened to him," she explained with a shrug of her shoulders and an apologetic smile.

"Wait," said the Doctor, stopping in mid stride, "Nyssa, my little, timid Nyssa, beat up Captain Jack 'Shoot First Ask Questions Later' Harkness?" he asked trying, but failing miserably, at hiding his amusement.

"Well she caught me off guard," said Jack defensively causing both Martha and the Doctor to burst out laughing. When they didn't stop after several minutes Jack started pouting, "Shut up… ju-just shut up!" he cried.

Nyssa shook her head and chuckled, "It's okay Jack, they're only teasing," she said, going up on her tip-toes and pecking his cheek.

"What is it with you and women?" asked Martha as soon as she composed herself.

"The same thing it is with me and men, they find me irresistible," Jack said with a cheeky grin.

Nyssa rolled her eyes and pulled the Doctor ahead, leaving Jack and Martha to bicker about something else, "You sure have an eclectic group," she remarked.

"Well, I needed some happy," he remarked, "No emotional baggage like the old days."

"So what?" asked Nyssa, irritated, "I was just baggage to you?"

"No!" the Doctor exclaimed, "No, not at all!" he assured, "I just have enough baggage for the three of us now. I mean how did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Deal with the fact that your family and everyone you ever knew are dead?"

"I got a new family," she said matter-of-factly, "I got over my world's demise by letting you in. In the TARDIS, I still had a family. I wasn't 'The Last Daughter of Traken'; I was Nyssa, relative genius and naïve little girl. And I'll be the first to admit we were a dysfunctional family, but it was a family none the less. I would never give up the time I spent with you, Tegan and Adric. You just need to learn to let them in," she finished, nodding to the now approaching humans.

"Why is it that we're looking for this bloke anyway?" asked Martha falling into step with the Doctor as Nyssa started to talk to Jack while he flirted with her shamelessly.

"We believe that he's being possessed by a being from Galifreyan history, Omega who is made of pure anti-matter," the Doctor explained, hiding the fear in his voice.

"Oh and you thought right Doctor," said a mocking voice behind them.

"Omega," said the Doctor, turning around and glaring at the frail man, "That body you've taken won't last much longer."

"It doesn't matter," he said dismissively as he walked down from his perch at the top of the flight of stairs, "I've got a new body already lined up."

"Who's?" asked Nyssa.

"One of your old friends, a Dr. Garm?" he stated smugly.

"No!" she cried as Garm came into view, looking at a clip board as he walked in from another hallway. There was a horrible noise as a shadow of Omega appeared as he transferred from the leper's body to Garm's. The Doctor leapt into the shadow of Omega as he was transferring, getting caught in a shroud of anti-matter. The Doctor let out an agonizing scream and fell, landing prostrate on the tile. When Omega was done shifting he let out a chuckle and then ran off, but not before grabbing something from the dead leper's pocket.

"What happened, are you all right?" Martha asked the Doctor as Nyssa stood there in shock.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," the Doctor said and then he let out a hiss of pain as Martha and Jack helped him up from his spot on the floor, "I was being stupid, I thought I could stop it," he finished, finally standing

"Omega took this man's body, used it up and left it as he died," the Doctor explained, a grim look on his face. Nyssa gasped after the Doctor finished and fell to her knees at the leper's side, tears streaming down her face.

"Nyssa, I'm very sorry and it's horrible what he did, but we have to go," the Doctor said urgently, still sounding in pain.

"I'll stay."

"Jack?" asked Martha.

"I'll stay with Nyssa. Give her time to mourn."

"You're sure?" asked the Doctor, all business.

"Yes, we'll catch up later."

"Okay," said the Doctor, dragging Martha off in the direction that Omega ran off in.

Jack dropped to his knees next to Nyssa, letting her crumple into his arms. Jack rubbed the sides of Nyssa's forearms in a soothing motion as she sobbed into his chest.

"He didn't deserve it," Nyssa said between sniffles, "This man was so sweet and kind, and all he did was die in cold blood."

"What was his name?" asked Jack, "Unless I'm prying."

"Dermal," she whispered, "Dermal Necropaolos."

"Greek then, hmm?" Jack asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yes," she chuckled, "Straight from the heart of modern day Greece."

"Do you want to go and find the man that killed him?" Jack asked her after a few moments of looking at Dermal's lifeless corpse, his tone vengeful.

"Sure," she replied, her voice as cold as ice, "Let's go. Just promise he'll get buried properly."

"Of course I will," Jack said helping Nyssa stand up then they set off down the hall at a brisk jog, hands still clasped.

They came into the main control room at the same time the Doctor and Martha did, only on the opposite side, Omega's back facing Nyssa and Jack.

"I see you finally got here," Omega sneered at the Doctor and Martha.

"Yeah," said Martha, who noticed a white clump of material in his hand, "So what's that then?"

"It's an explosive," Omega responded in a condescending tone, "I plan on blowing this station up, sending the entire universe into a cataclysmic explosion, resulting in the end of the universe."

"How?" the human asked, "It's just one explosive."

"But were at the center of the universe," the Doctor explained, "The explosion would undo Event One, effectively killing everything."

"Event One?" Martha asked.

"Yeah," the Doctor said, "Event One, uh… The Creator, massive explosion that started the universe, ya know Big Bang," he explained, ignoring Omega.

During Omega's little rant and the Doctor's explanation, Jack leaned over and whispered to Nyssa, "I've got a clear shot, but the decision is up to you. Can I kill him?"

Nyssa hesitated, "I don't know. Give me a minute." Jack nodded and mouthed to the Doctor, "Keep talking."

"We can't let you do that." the Doctor said, as Jack took out his revolver.

"What can you do to stop me?" Omega stated smugly.

"Oh we could do a lot of things. We could open up the window, but that would kill us as well. We could talk you to death, that would be fun. We could discuss the chemical properties of a banana; did you know that bananas and humans share half their DNA?" the Doctor rambled, clearly stalling.

"I didn't know that!" exclaimed Martha, playing along, "That's weird!"

"Yes," Nyssa decided, startling Jack, who had been paying attention to the Doctor's rant, with the sound of her voice, "The man standing there is no longer my friend. He is only a shell, running on hate and revenge," she explained, never taking her eyes off of Garm's back as his arms shook in agitation.

"This is irrelevant!" cried an angered Omega, "I don't care about bananas or humans or what you had for breakfast the day the music died! I have the bomb all ready set to explode, all I need to do is-" he never got to finish his sentence as Jack fired several bullets into the back of Garm's dirty grey fur which flew off, his think body absorbing the blows. He turned around, his eyes glowing red, glaring at Jack and Nyssa. Omega let out a growl and started running at the two when The Doctor and Martha took this time to fling themselves at the massive creature, catching it off guard and sending him falling onto the stairs. The explosive was flung from Omega's hand, sending it flying into a utility closet. The bomb exploded, causing a hole straight though the wall of the closet and into the hallway. Everyone stood in shock for a moment and looked at each other with wide eyes. Nyssa looked down and was met with the sight of Garm's lifeless body lying at her feet. The Doctor held out his arms, waiting for Nyssa to cry into them, but she never did. He looked surprised at the fact that his open arms went by unnoticed by Nyssa as she crumpled into Jack's arms once more, mourning her friends that she had lost. He put them down lamely and watched as the girl he took care of so many years ago sobbed uncontrollably into Jack's chest, Jack whispering claming things as he rubbed her back, trying to sooth her. They spent a good few hours like that before Nyssa was composed enough to leave the control room.

"Will you be okay, Nyssa?" asked the Doctor a few hours after the death, when they were ready to leave.

"Yes Doctor, I'll be fine. Although I will have to take Garm's job as security lead," she sadly said.

"I'll do it."

"Jack?" asked the Doctor.

"I'll do it. I want to stay. I need to be a part of something, why not this?"

"But Jack," pleaded Martha, "you're a part of _this_. We love you here, why leave?" she asked, putting her hand on the TARDIS' outerior wall.

"I had my time with the Doctor; I can be done with that. Also, I was a Time Agent," he stated as if that explained everything.

"What does that have to do with anything?" asked the Doctor incredulously.

"The Time Agency funded Terminus Inc." Jack explained, "And I feel a bit responsible. And I've done the whole traveling hobo thing and it was fun. But now all I want to do is stay in one place, and as an added bonus, here I can snog people," Jack explained with a lascivious grin directed at Nyssa who gave him a pointed stare.

"I don't think Nyssa wants that," joked the Doctor, shaking Jack's hand, finally accepting his decision to leave.

"She'll come around," Jack smirked then turned to hug Martha, "See ya, love. Don't get into too much trouble, ya hear?"

"I won't," said Martha, a smile on her face.

"Well, I guess this is good-bye again Doctor," stated Nyssa. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on his cheek and whispered into his ear, "Just let her in."

And with those parting words both Martha and the Doctor walked into the TARDIS. As it slowly dematerialized Nyssa turned to Jack and asked, "Let's go?"

"Let's go," he confirmed and the two of them walked off.


End file.
